The instructional quest of three tutorials for four Achievements

It all began with doing half of Terraria‘s tutorial, which put me at a perfect Gamerscore of 55,555, which, to number-obsessive nerds like myself, is an amusing triumph. Loyal readers of Grinding Down should already know that I have a penchant for going after perfect scores, like 10,000, 20,000, and so on, but when I saw that I was sitting humbly at 55,550 after playing some Tom Clancy’s The Division…I just knew I needed to make it something special. I assumed it wouldn’t be tough to do, and, for once, I assumed correctly.

And so I scanned my list of games, searching for a 5-point Achievement that could slide me into the sweet spot. I found a couple, but none of them screamed easy to me, and I couldn’t risk going after something like this only to pop an Achievement for 10 or 15 points and completely blow the plan. Thus, I settled on Terraria, which I got for free back in April 2015, downloaded, and then didn’t touch. There’s also a copy on my laptop that I never got into; I’ve always viewed it as a more complex 2D Minecraft, and the thought of maneuvering its UI via a controller is beyond off-putting. Still, there’s an Achievement for 5 points for starting the tutorial, as well as one for 5 points upon completing it, which lead to me loading the event up, beginning it, and then shutting my console down. Y’know, like a boss.

Anyways, since I’ve now already leapfrogged past this 55,555 mark and am on my way to the coveted 60,000 check-box, here’s photographic proof from a few days ago for preservation’s sake:

Aw yeah to the heck yeah. Also, maybe I need to update my user pic so that it fills in that whole gray circle. Maybe.

Anyways, sticking with the tutorial theme of this post, I also then played the tutorial levels for Gears of War 2 and Supreme Commander 2, both of which have been added to the free games list for Gaming with Gold. I like that, for these two games, as well as Terraria, the tutorial sections are optional or skippable. Most games work them into the opening level, which can sometimes feel forced and too hand-holdy. The Gears of War 2 tutorial has you teaching a rookie how to be a super soldier like yourself, which at least makes sense from a narrative perspective since you already know how to actively reload from the previous game, whereas Supreme Commander 2 explains every step of how to play an RTS game on a console, in two lengthy parts. It brought back all those reasons why I don’t love this genre, unfortunately.

Hands down, my favorite tutorial level to date is the one from Deus Ex. Here’s a convenient visual walkthrough of it. Anyways, again, it’s separate from the main campaign, but does a good job of teaching you a number of important mechanics without overwhelming you. Plus, there’s room to be goofy and explore, and there’s even a secret area you can access if you search hard enough. I feel like I’ve played the tutorial more times than the actual game at this point.

In the end, here are all of my digitally sweet and easy e-peen rewards:

Terraria Student (5G): Begin the tutorial!

Terraria Expert (5G): You have completed the tutorial!

Green as Grass (10G): Train the rook (any difficulty)

Start Here (10G): Complete both parts of the tutorial

I wonder what weird side mission I’ll undergo to nail 60,000 Gamerscore on the dot, which, at this rate, is either by summer or end of 2016. Hmm. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be weirdly fun to write about. Until then, I guess.

Forget pirating, there’s shanties to chase in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was given out to Xbox 360 players for free as part of the Games with Gold program back in…oh my, late April 2015. For some reason, I thought it had been sitting in my digital library for longer than that. At some point, it was also given out to peeps on the Xbox One, but I didn’t have the console yet and wasn’t smart enough then to know that I could still click download and tie it to my account for future use, which means I’m stuck playing the previous generation version. It is serviceable, though I’m sure facial expressions are a bit more lifelike on the newer consoles.

A reminder for any new readers here at Grinding Down on my history with the Assassin’s Creed series, which I enjoy from a somewhat casual perspective. Once I’m into one, I’m into it, unable to not climb to every rooftop and take care of each icon on the map until all that is left is a clutter-less picture. I got into the series like many did at the start, finding the first Assassin’s Creed impressive, but repetitive. Then, for some reason, I next played Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and absolutely loved it, both the single player campaign and the multiplayer, which is an aspect of gaming I generally steer clear of. Last year, I went back and played Assassin’s Creed II, which helped to make more sense of story details in Brotherhood though that’s on me for playing them out of order. And now here we are, skipping Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Assassin’s Creed III to do some hardcore pirating. Fine by me.

Black Flag‘s main story is set in the 18th century Caribbean during the golden age of piracy, people being smarmy, and lots of ships sailing to and fro. The plot follows notorious pirate Edward Kenway, the grandfather and father of Assassin’s Creed III protagonists Ratonhnhaké:ton and Haytham Kenway, respectively, who stumbles into the conflict between assassins and Templars after he is shipwrecked. In the present day scenario, you are a new employee working at the Montreal offices of Abstergo Entertainment—a subsidiary of Abstergo Industries—exploring its cubicles, eavesdropping on conversations, and hacking computers to uncover secrets about the sinister company. To be honest, I don’t care a lick about the storyline so far, in both realms; thankfully, the gameplay provides plenty to draw enjoyment from, and never demands you get on with the ruddy campaign.

In terms of gameplay, there’s all the usual elements from previous Assassin’s Creed games here: climbing, stealth assassinating, syncing, looting, running, hiring groups of people to hide among, trailing guards, and so on. The new stuff is mostly ocean-bound, with Kenway able to sail a ship, plunder and loot other ships, and explore numerous islands on the map that may house treasure and other goodies, like rare animals to murder for your fancy pouches and outfits. By far, my favorite advancement in this series is that everything is now available on your map after syncing a high view point, and then you can spend the next hour or so collecting each and every thing before moving on to do the actual story mission. Or collecting more from another synced view point. There’s little hand-holding, with the game treating you as an actual, capable adult–these decisions are yours to make. Plus, to catch shanties for your pirate crew to sing while sailing the ocean blue, you have to chase them down in the environment, which is way more fun than simply chasing a dude down in a race or for a few coins.

Still, it’s another Assassin’s Creed game from Ubisoft, and some stuff never changes. Like having your character leap from a building’s rooftop and lose half his health when really you meant for him to move a little to the left and travel along that rope tied to another rooftop. Also, and I want to do some more research into this, but the subtitles follow a strange style related to capitalization, where most words in a sentence are uppercase, but not all of them. Like so: “Avast, Kenway! Do you have Time to Make your crew a Large Plate of Scrambled eggs? We are Totes Hungry.” I don’t know, it’s very strange and hard to not notice since I enjoy reading words. Missions where you trail dudes and have to maintain a specific distance with them, but not be spotted return, though at least you can rate them one star at the end through Abstergo’s feedback forms. I still think combat is fairly button mashy and annoying, which is why I try to go for the stealth kills if I can.

The stats screen at the start says I’ve completed 15% of Black Flag so far, and in terms of story, I’m somewhere in sequence 3. That’s fine. I’m in no rush, especially when there are so many glyphs, treasure chests, and shanties to grab, as well as assassination targets and pirates to rescue and kitty cats to pet. Did I not yet mention you can press a button to pet a cat as it moves between your legs? And that it purrs affectionately? The best Assassin’s Creed game yet.

Sorry, there are no more skulls left in Motocross Madness

Motocross Madness is a game I played for a bit after getting it as a freebie back in August 2014, but then drifted away from for a good chunk of time. Many months, in fact. Truthfully, I really only enjoyed the heck out of the game’s Exploration mode, which plopped you down in the world where the game’s race tracks exist, but gives you freedom to explore off the tracks as you please to collect gold coins and skulls. These feed into the medals you get, as well as provide money and XP, so they are more than just shiny trinkets to grab. The standard races and trick sessions are fine enough, but a bit too perfunctory and easy to perfect. My heart can’t resist collecting things; for further proof, see games like LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, Disney Magical World, and Kung Fu Rabbit.

Right. So, over the last few months, I’ve been noodling away at Motocross Madness, playing for a bit and collecting a skull or two. Incrementally edging my way up to a 100% completion rate. It became a thing I did to fill in the gaps between other games or if I had fifteen to twenty minutes to kill before I had to make dinner. However, it became more of a hassle–in my mind than in reality–to turn on my Xbox 360 now that I had a shiny Xbox One to slobber over, and so Motocross Madness got visited less and less. That is until a few weeks back, when it was announced to now be backwards-compatible on the new console. I’m probably the only person in the world that saw that news and genuinely felt warmth in my heart, but whatever.

I recently had some time off of work over the holidays, and I used some of it to, besides draw and go see the ultra cute and sing-songy Elf the Musical in New York City, well…play more Motocross Madness. I’m totally fine with this. Never let anyone tell you what to do on your days off. Along the way, I also sat down and figured out how to use the streaming programs on the Xbox One, which lead to me recording about four hours of me getting the last flaming skulls and Achievements for all the Internet to see. If you’ve got time to kill, feel free to watch the archived videos over at my YouTube. Please understand before going into these vids that I’m still relatively new to this and am figuring out microphone/gameplay audio settings, but I’m thinking 2016 will be the year I put more effort into this venue.

Collecting skulls was fun despite a few frustrations. It’s multi-part; first, you have to find the skull in the environment, and then you have to figure out how to get it. Sometimes they are on the ground, and you just ride your bike up to it, but the majority are high in the sky, requiring a sick jump to grab. It’s only when you get down to having a single skull left in a large environment that it becomes maddening as you search every nook and cranny, desperate to catch the flicker of orange flames. Eventually, I caved and looked up a walkthrough online, quickly scribbling down locations on a hand-drawn map so that I’d, at least, still not know exactly where these skulls were and have some involvement in their capture.

When examined without the Exploration mode, Motocross Madness is actually a substandard racing game with bikes. The races themselves aren’t all that challenging, especially once you upgrade your hog, and the trick system is not in-depth, allowing you to only do a few moves in the air…unless you’re into crashing. Once you are on “fire,” which happens after building a meter for successfully doing tricks, you can do another set for more points. I highly recommend performing the Rodeo Cowboy each and every time. It probably gets a pass overall because it uses your avatar, which makes the costumes and tricks more fun to see than some generic-looking dude or dudette. Still, once I got all the skulls, I didn’t really know what to do; online racing was no more exciting than the single-player stuff, unfortunately.

Oh, if you were curious what my crudely drawn maps actually looked like, they looked like this:

Yup–my art skills are wildly good. Now to figure out what I can stream next. I like the idea of having a goal for streaming, not just playing through the game’s main campaign, though I understand a lot of people do that. Perhaps I can capture getting the remainder of Fallout 4‘s Bobbleheads or causing some random chaos to happen in Just Cause 2. Must think on this. One thing I know for certain is that, just like when I finished up LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, an invisible weight has been lifted off my shoulders (and mind), and I don’t have to return to this digital world ever again. Unless I want to.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #2 – Motocross Madness

Vroom, vroom all around
Egypt, Australia, Iceland
For coins, fire skulls

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

The Top 10 Videogames I Didn’t Get to Play in 2015

Well, lookie here. The year is done, and every single videogame that came out passed through my hands and by my eyes and got a firm, fair opinion. Er, no. That’s not true. Not the “firm, fair opinion” part, because I write what I feel and feel what I write, but rather the can’t argue with that fact that I simply cannot play every big or small game that drops over the course of twelve months. Perhaps one day, when I retire–you know, in something like fifty years, when people are playing videogames embedded in their eyes.

Right. Here’s a short bullet list of the previous entries in this annual Grinding Down fan-favorite feature (I think I’m its only fan, but that still counts):

• The Top 10 Videogames I Didn’t Get to Play in 2014
• The Top 10 Videogames I Didn’t Get to Play in 2013
• The Top 10 Videogames I Didn’t Get to Play in 2012
• The Top 10 Videogames I Didn’t Get to Play in 2011
• The Top 10 Videogames I Didn’t Get to Play in 2010

With all that perfunctory introduction text said, onwards, towards the titles never to be touched, at least not until maybe next year or some time deep into 2017 when they are handed out as freebies on consoles or dumped together in a money-saving bundle…

10. Just Cause 3

Considering I only began digging into Rico Rodriguez’s wild, chaos-causing antics in Just Cause 2 this past summer and haven’t even hit the 25% completion mark yet, I’ve got a ways to go before I try out that new, fun-looking squirrel suit in Just Cause 3. This new adventure continues to look like a fun time, but I’m in no rush to explore another mass of open, sprawling landscape with things colored red prime for exploding. I mean I could, but I shouldn’t. Not until all of Panau is fire and ash.

9. Rocket League

I’m only mildly interested in soccer, having been forced to play it a whole bunch as a young boy, and I’m even less interested in cars. Which is funny when you consider that I’m currently shopping around for a new ride. So long as it has plenty of cup holders and working AC, I’m good. But enough about that. Rocket League evidently fuses these two elements to create a futuristic sport that is fun as all gets. I figured that I’d just never play this, seeing as I sided with getting an Xbox One over a PS4, but rumor has it that it’s coming to Microsoft’s bulky console soon enough.

8. Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe and the Blight Below

I love the Dragon Quest roleplaying series, but am even more fascinated with its spin-offs, like Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. I’ve never played a Dynasty Warriors game, as these seem too button-mashy for my thumbs, but this one comes with all the iconic and goofy trappings that the RPG series is known for, as well as many smiling slimes to slice. Color me, at the very least, intrigued; plus, it has a wickedly weird title, something I cannot resist and which can only be shortened to…DQH: TWTWATBB.

7. Life is Strange

I have the first episode on Steam thanks a recent bundle from Humble Bundle, but I still don’t see myself playing this over the next day or so. Regardless, of all the episodic adventure game series that were happening this year, Life is Strange seemed to be the one garnering the most interest. Probably for good reasons. I really enjoyed the studio’s Remember Me and its time-rewinding mechanics, which I know play a part of this game’s plot. I’m eager to see what terrible choices I can make and who will remember what.

6. Volume

While I might not have enjoyed the repetitive nature of Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, I applauded the effort it took to stretch that content out into something bigger and better than just the ten or so training levels you easily handle in Metal Gear Solid. Volume seems to be a big fan of those levels too, at least from a style and gameplay mechanics perspective. Knowing full well how great of a narrative Mike Bithell was able to create for something like Thomas Was Alone, a simplistic-looking platformer starring colored shapes, I have to imagine there’s a good, cool-as-heck spy story to go along with Volume.

5. Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition

Over the course of 2015, I’ve played a few different match-three style puzzle games, some new and some old–and some of which I never even got to write about, though y’all already know my high and low thoughts on Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight and Pokemon Shuffle. That said, haven’t gotten around to Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition, which seems like your typical addicting match puzzle game, but smeared in all things Nintendo. I see nothing wrong with that. Evidently, this comes bundled with another Puzzle & Dragons game, one more slanted towards acting like a JRPG, and I see nothing wrong with that also.

4. Grow Home

I’m not going to lie–I miss the days of character-driven platforming games, where the goal was often navigating an open space, while also collecting trinkets and thingamajigs to meet some required demand before hitting the exit. Every day I have to resist popping in my PS2 copies of Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank, to remember what it feels like to jump from one colorful platform via a cartoony character to another. I assure you, it is satisfying. Anyways, out of seemingly nowhere, Ubisoft released Grow Home earlier this year, which stars a goofy robot growing vines and climbing higher into the sky. The graphics are stylish and colorful, and I am super curious to explore this world. Perhaps next year.

3. Her Story

I don’t know much about Her Story, and I don’t want to know much about Her Story. That’s deliberate. From what I can gather, it is an FMV-driven adventure game where you play a detective, watching clips from taped interviews with a woman involved in some kind of crime. From there, it is up to you to don your deerstalker, take out a pad of paper and pen, and investigate further clips in a database by searching for key words and phrases. Sounds really awesome, especially since I’ve been listening to a lot Serial and watching Making a Murderer this week. The non-professional detective in me is eager to get to work and solve a crime with only my noggin.

2. Undertale

Alas, I have not lived up to many of my promises in 2015. I was hoping to finally see Final Fantasy IX through to its conclusion, as well as get farther along on the lonely path that is clearing out all the Metal Gear Solid games (more on that in a bit). After those promises, there was another one, unspoken, but beginning to blossom…one that has sat inside my chest since May 2015, eating away at my heart. See, that’s when I, at last, got hold of a copy of EarthBound (as a digital download on the Wii U), a game which Undertale, as far as I know, takes a lot of inspiration from. I’d like to play the former before I touch the latter.

1. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

I thought I was making good progress on getting through all these Metal Gear Solid games. In 2015, I finished replaying Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and experienced, for the very first time, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. In a way, I was on a roll, but then I hit Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. It’s not that Peace Walker is a bad game; in fact, it has some style to its cutscenes, but is perhaps bloated with far too many teeny tiny missions that take too long to complete, and everything is doled out at the pace of a snail on speed and too much caffeine. All of that is to say that I’m far from the end of it, and even then I still need to get through Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes before I dive into The Phantom Pain, which, from the little I’ve seen, is kind of similar to Peace Walker. Hmm.

—

So, there’s my list. Ba-dah-dum. It certainly contains some heavy-hitters from the last twelve months, though I’m just happy to not see Fallout 4 on here to tell y’all the truth. I’ll drop a few others that didn’t quite make the above cut, but are games I would have liked to try out this year, but did not: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4, Downwell, Happy Home Academy, Emily is Away, and Cibele. I’ll cut it off there for now because, really, truthfully, depressingly, the list is ever endless.

Now what about you reading this here blog of mine? Tell me a game or two that came out in 2015 that, for some reason, you didn’t get to touch whether because it is on a different console or your backlog is simply too massive or your mother declared it too violent for your pubescent eyes or whatever. Go on. Leave a comment. Curious minds want to know, and I’ll see everyone back here in December 2016 for another fantastically depressing list.

The only way to Quarrel is with an anagram solver

Words are wonderful; trust me, I copyedit for a living. Not surprisingly, I enjoy a great number of word-based games, such as Scrabble, Scattegories, Apples to Apples, Zip-It, Balderdash, and so on. Basically, if it lets me flex my word-creation or word-pairing muscles, I’m in. However, I’ve never been great at seeing anagrams, especially under a tight time limit, which is why I quickly dropped away from Quarrel a week or two after I got it back in January 2012. You might have noticed that I “completed” it a few weeks back, giving it its very own haiku.

By “completed,” I am talking about the critical path to defeating everyone in the Showdown mode, as well as dominating the known Quarrel world through the domination mode. Both these modes are various scenarios where you battle against one, two, or sometimes three AI-controlled opponents, all fighting for colored territory. There is online play and a number of challenges and Achievements to go for, but I think I’m mostly done going after those. Also, by “completed” I totally mean cheated.

The process went like this. Since I always was picked to go last in both the Showdown and Domination modes, this meant waiting and watching. If an opponent attacked another opponent not named PaulyAulyWog, my girlfriend and I would quickly look at the eight letters given to us, pause the action, and then load up an anagram solver on her cell phone. After plopping down all the letters, she’d select an eight-letter word and tell me what to create. I’d do this as quickly as possible, though sometimes my fingers would slip or I’d hit the wrong letter by accident, forcing me to panic and swiftly amend my error. So long as I got the anagram submitted in time before the two other players put in their answers, I was awarded an extra back-up unit, which are beyond helpful. The process, more or less, went the same when I got attacked, but it was never a guarantee I’d win because I might not have enough letters or still was too slow when buttoning in.

Honestly, I don’t feel too terrible about using an anagram solver for Quarrel. I would for nearly every other word-based game, especially the ones I mentioned earlier. For many of the Showdown and Domination matches, the first fight against you is absolutely crucial for determining how well the remainder of the round will go. If you don’t win or at least take a prisoner early on, it’s basically over, and not a whole bag of fun to sit through everybody’s turns knowing you are a lost cause. Perhaps there are people out there that see a string of six to eight letters and immediately, within seconds, know what the strongest word to create is–I am not those people. Before giving in and relying on an anagram solver, I attempted to play these two modes, only getting as far as two or three rounds in, and those were farces, with me somehow staying alive long enough to watch everyone else kill each other and feast on their remains when the smoke cleared.

When you’re tasked with creating a three- or four-letter word against an opponent with the same objective, speed often trumps complexity. However, when you have the opportunity to make an eight-letter anagram, you make that eight-letter anagram. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what arsenite or ergatoid means; they are knockout words, and the faster you put them down, the stronger your army will grow. You might be quick enough to remember those eight mixed up letters and pause the game yourself to search for a word, but I recommend having a partner next to you. Eventually, my girlfriend would begin memorizing the first four letters, and then I’d pause, giving her the last four, and saving us a second or two of time. That might not seem like much, but Quarrel‘s AI opponents do not kid around. Unless we’re talking about Dwayne, that is.

So yeah, Quarrel. There’s a lot to like; on the flip side, there’s a lot to dislike, and perhaps it speaks to the quality of the game’s challenge that I had to look outside my noggin for extra help. Again, maybe there are super geniuses out there with fingers like that one bot from Ghost in the Shell that can figure out the anagram right away and submit it faster than light. I suspect many might not suffer the same difficulties as I did, but this is one puzzle game that was more frustrating than fun, even when you figured out the way to win.

Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight gets the cold shoulder

Look, I like Frozen well enough, but a part of me wishes that other Disney and Pixar franchises got the same amount of love and fanfare that this one is currently riding, such as The Incredibles and A Bug’s Life, of which the latter at least gets a cute, interactive movie inside the Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom. Frozen is basically taking over the world (and Norway-land in Epcot), retail shelf by retail shelf, as well as seeping its way into videogame consoles through insidious free-to-play gem-matching microtransaction machines that I, for some reason or another, can’t resist checking out.

I began playing Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight on the Xbox 360 a month or so back, but then Fallout 4 came out and I grabbed an Xbox One and haven’t had much reason to turn on my older console since then other than to delete some downloaded games and move save profiles to…the cloud. Thankfully, much like TT Games’ LEGO romps, you can find Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight everywhere you turn, and so I downloaded it once more on my newest home console to give it another go and see if I could enjoy myself without having to spend any moolah. Paul’s golden rule is to never spend any moolah.

Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight is a match-three puzzle game. Y’know, Bejeweled…but with Disney’s characters for dressing. Or maybe the closer comparison is actually Candy Crush Saga. You are essentially matching like-colored gems and jewels to clear lines, create power-ups, and trigger combos for high scores. There are other elements at work, like trying to get specific items to the bottom of the level, a challenge I loathed in Hexic. Some levels have gems covered in frost, which can only be destroyed by clearing the gems twice. Lastly, some levels are timed, meaning the pressure is on to spot combos and keep things moving, especially near the bottom of the playing field, ensuring that a high score avalanche happens swiftly.

Ironically, I hit a wall right around the same spot as I did in the Xbox 360 version, which is in the level 20s or so, where Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight ramps up the difficulty significantly, but begins limiting the free power-ups that definitely help when you only have a few moves left and desperately need to see that crown drop down, not-so-subtly nudging you towards purchasing them with real-life cash. The pricing scheme is not friendly, asking $0.99 to add 15 seconds to a timed round, which, in reality, probably gets you four or five more moves. For some reason, I’m hardwired to try and play these free-to-play titles without using any of the extra abilities and items, to know if they are doable without them, like mostly in Pokemon Shuffle.

Also, you are given a limited number of hearts when you begin Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight, with the chance to win more by logging in every day and selecting a random tile to flip over. I think I started with 16 hearts, and every time you lose a match or do not complete the required objectives, you lose a heart. I’m down to 11 now. Once you run out, unless you win more through the daily log-in thingy, you’ll have to purchase more to keep playing. Spoiler alert: hearts aren’t cheap. Well, that sucks. Still, I’ve found an annoying way around this annoying feature, and that is this: quit the level before it is finished and restart the game, and you’ll have the same number of hearts as before. Which means once you realize things are going poorly or you aren’t going to hit that high score tier, simply exit out and return again to try once more. Not the best way to manipulate the system, but it does work (for now).

There are some other problems at work in Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight, and they fall under the graphics and sound departments. Both are lifeless and feel like afterthoughts. This is Bejeweled with a light coating of Frozen stuff, like an overworld map of Arendelle for selecting levels and these strange, barely animated versions of the characters that simply stand off to the side and watch as you make moves. Every now and then they clap, but not because you did something right; sometimes they clap when you lose. It’s on a cycle. The music is of a generic orchestral style, but not very memorable, which is ironic when there isn’t much to begin with and it repeats on each and every level you play.

The film version of Frozen took the world by storm, though I didn’t end up seeing it until many, many months later. Once I did, I got it; there’s strong, adventurous characters and an unbelievably catchy soundtrack to bop your head and pretend you aren’t singing along to. There’s warmth in all the frigidness, and a triumph to see through to the credits. Unfortunately, you’ll find none of that in Frozen Free Fall: Snowball Fight.

Trying to thieve as a master thief in Thief

The Xbox One recently rolled out its list of backwards-compatible games, and, no, Thief is not one of them. Not yet, at least. I’ll get to the connection shortly, I promise. I’m a big fan of this function, and it honestly was one of the attributes that resulted in me picking up this current-gen console over the other, despite all the hubbub around the possibility of PlayStation 2 emulation on the PlayStation 4. Anyways, with the fact that some of my Xbox 360 games are ready to be played on the newest console, this meant deletion and freeing up hard-drive space was imminent.

Once I deleted Just Cause 2 and moved my save game profile to the cloud–which is a technology that I’m still scared to trust–my Xbox 360 began downloading the next game in my queue, which turned out to be Square Enix’s Thief, released back in February 2014. It’s a stealthy game I’ve been eyeing for some time, though it was immediately strange and revealing going from sneaking around the Commonwealth in Fallout 4 to sneaking around the less-imaginative, ultra dark, Victorian-themed, plague-riddled City.

Here’s the story: master thief Garrett teams up with his former apprentice, Erin, on the same job from their contact Basso. It’s clear that Garrett and Erin differ on what it means to be a thief, with Erin happily murdering guards to ensure no one follows after them while Garrett would prefer to be less violent. Along the way, he steals her claw weapon. As they arrive at the Baron Northcrest’s manor, they discover some ritual taking place. Garrett calls off the job, but Erin refuses to listen, falling into the center of the ritual, which was nearing its completion, becoming engulfed by some mystical energy. Garrett is knocked out trying to save her, and only awakens from unconsciousness a year later.

It’s not a great story so far–I’m past the prologue and somewhere into the second chapter, after visiting a church–and a lot of that falls on Garrett’s cloak-covered shoulders. He comes across as a self-righteous do-gooder, stealing from the rich and keeping it for himself, but also always has a snarky one-liner to say for every situation, often to the point of mockery. I get the sense that he lacks empathy and could care less about what happened to his friend Erin, but we’ll see where things go. It’s hard to get a lot of story when your main character spends the majority of his time slinking around houses in the dark, half-listening to conversations through keyholes, not letting a single footstep be heard.

The focus of Thief is to use stealth in order to overcome a number of challenges, with violence often left as a last resort. I’m all about that. “The stealthier, the better” would make an excellent bumper sticker. Early on, I ran into the same problem that turned me off of Dishonored, in that once you are spotted, there is little chance of survival, which only makes me want to do perfect stealth runs, with no room for error. That said, I don’t think Thief plays or looks all that great; it’s sluggish and murky, with nothing distinctive-looking about it. So far, the coolest move, in my mind, Garrett can do is distinguish candles to darken a room, and I’m eagerly awaiting popping an Achievement somehow related to doing this.

Heads up: there’s also a lot of pressing X. You hit this button to pick up loot, of which there’s a ton. I think there was over 70 pieces to grab in the first chapter alone, and this loot translate into money, which you can later then spend on skill tree upgrades, weapons, and miscellaneous items. however, when it comes to desks and drawers, plan to press X a bunch and be disappointed when you find nothing. Also, I think I had a similar gripe with Batman: Arkham Asylum, but mashing a button to open a window or grate is beyond tedious, there only to pad out what little gameplay already exists.

I’d really like to see Thief become backwards-compatible on the Xbox One, but not because it is some much treasured entry in the series and fans are eagerly looking to play it right now. It’s more out of laziness. The further forward I go with my new current console, the less interested I am in switching on the 360, changing inputs on my TV, and plugging a controller into the system. Yes, I’m the same dude who is still working away at Final Fantasy IX, a PlayStation 1 RPG of old on my still-kicking PlayStation 2, but that’s on a different television in my bedroom. Okay, I have to get back now to looting dead bodies and hanging cat portraits on my settlement’s structures…oh wait, wrong game.

100%-ing LEGO Marvel Super Heroes nearly broke me

Naturally, I saved all the elements I hated the most for last when working towards hitting the 100% completion mark in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. Like races, of all variety. Like replaying every story level a second time to find the last few collectibles. That’s it, really. Those are the two mission types I disliked the most, as the fetch quests and bonus levels kept things lively, and so long as you have a character that can fly–my go-to was always Galactus or Ms. Marvel–then you can zip around the hub world and start checking off tasks…somewhat quickly. Getting there is no big problem, but one still has to factor in solving the puzzle to unlock the gold brick, vehicle, or character.

Races in the sense of a competition between runners, horses, vehicles, boats, etc. to see which is the fastest in covering a set course are just the worst when it comes to open-world videogames. I avoid them at all costs. I think I did the obligatory one in Grand Theft Auto V and never went back. There are a few types in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: in air, in vehicles, or on foot. None of them are fun. One mistake generally costs you the entire race, forcing you to go back to the mission giver and try again, which is sometimes not an easy process. The flying ones are a real hassle as the controls for zipping through the sky like some cool person are clunky and, nine times out of ten, work against you. Here’s a real kicker though: Maria Hill challenges the player to a go-kart race on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, but it’s on a digitalized, floating track in the sky, and if she wins, the track disappears, and you fall all the way down to the city below. Want to try again? You have to either fly back to the Helicarrier or use a warp station.

Let’s talk a bit about Stan Lee. You know, the iconic American comic book writer, editor, publisher, media producer, television host, and actor who loves making cameos whenever it comes to all things Marvel. He’s a collectible in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, and there’s fifty in total to rescue. One Stan Lee in Peril is found in all the story levels and bonus levels, with the rest, a good twenty or twenty-five out in the hub world somewhere. Thankfully, an icon appears on the map to let you know where he is, but you can naturally only rescue one at a time. He’s not Multiple Man, mind you.

Anyways, after rescuing a bunch of Stan Lees in the hub world, I noticed there was no new icon showing up, which lead me to both recheck the map several times, but also assume that any new Stan Lee rescue missions were locked until I did something else. Or hit a set percent completion. As it turns out, that was not true; instead, there was a Stan Lee icon on the map the whole time, just hidden underneath another icon, one for a story mission that I had already completed. I only saw it visible when glancing at the mini map; you can’t see it through viewing the large map. In short, I could have been collecting Stan Lee the entire time, but didn’t because the developers thought it was a good idea to hide the icon on a map they clearly knew gamers were going to use as a means to set waypoints and track down things. In shorter, screw Stan “The King of Cameos” Lee.

Lastly, even after hitting 100% completion and enjoying the warm fuzzies of seeing all those collectibles collected, I still wasn’t done with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. See, I began playing the game co-op with my girlfriend, and evidently the Falling…with Style Achievement for successfully sky-diving off the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier is glitched if you try to do it first in co-op. The only way for me to pop it was to start a new game and never bring in another player. More frustratingly, you don’t get access to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier until after the first story level is completed. Imagine me, drained from grinding my heart out on LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, having to play a story level for a third time simply to be fully done with this mutation. Also, you can’t skip cutscenes the first go around. I grumbled through it, jumped off the Helicarrier, saw the Achievement pop, and felt an invisible weight lift off my shoulders.

At one point during my seemingly impossible climb to 100% completion, Deadpool mocked me for even trying. Made fun of me going after all these collectibles or doing another vehicle race simply to check it off an imaginary to-do list. I get that that’s Deadpool’s thing, breaking the fourth wall and whatnot…but when the videogame you are attempting to master is leaning back and laughing at you, one has to wonder. Super heroes are often defined by their sacrifices. I feel like LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is one of my greatest.

Upgrading ED-E and my Xbox 360 in time for Fallout 4

It’s crazy to write this, but Fallout 4 comes out this week. I’m under no embargo, so I can totally say that out loud without fear of retribution. In fact, on Wednesday, I’ll be joining the next generation of gamers–a.k.a. the current gen–with an Xbox One and a retail copy of Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic take on Boston. Yeah, I know the game releases to the public a day prior, but my bundle won’t arrive until Hump Day. That all said, I’m totes excited.

I fired up Fallout: New Vegas over the weekend because the reality is this: once I can deep-dive into Fallout 4, it’s going to be hard to return to any of the prior games. That’s fine when it comes to Fallout 3 because I saw and did nearly everything possible, but there’s still a handful of things to do and Achievements to pop left in Fallout: New Vegas, and it seems like I haven’t touched my console copy of the game in about three years. A couple of them still seem too much for my waning heart, like completing an entire run on the “hardcore” difficulty or getting banned from all the strip’s casinos. However, I noticed that there were two left unpopped from the Deathclaw- and radiation-heavy DLC Lonesome Road. Hmm. Off to the Divide!

My first focus was on upgrading everyone’s favorite floating eye-bot equipped with battle theme music ED-E with all five performance enhancements. I guess I missed one or two the only other time I played the DLC, which meant I opted to have a guide open next to me as I both meandered through the irradiated land and listened to Dave Lang coin future Giant Bomb phrases like “get monked” during his Extra Life 2015 stream. I was able to get four of the five upgrades for ED-E, which do stick in the robot permanently when you return to the Mojave Desert, but one required a Science skill level of 75 or up to hack a terminal and open a locked door. I’m guessing I didn’t have the skill high enough before. Well, as luck has it, I did not have a great Science skill with this character either, so I grinded out some XP and used a magazine to hit 75 on the dot. Check it out:

ED-Ecated (20G): Find all of ED-E’s upgrades in the Divide.

The other Achievement that I was juggling progress towards as I outfitted ED-E for the future is Warhead Hunter, which tasks the Courier with detonating all of the warheads in the Divide. There are thirty in total, and by the time I had spoken Ulysses down from unnecessary violence–thank you, 100 Speech skill level–I had twenty-four taken care of. Then I hit up the Courier’s Mile for two more, which is a really tough section full of radiation and Deathclaws; I kind of zipped in, used the laser detonator, and got out faster than you can say wasteland omelet. That means I have four left, and I’m not sure exactly where they are, nor do I feel like retracing every step I took to unearth them. Kind of a bummer, but my fault for not following a step-by-step guide.

If anything, this brief return to Fallout: New Vegas has reminded me of what I’d like to see greatly improved in Fallout 4. Combat can still be chaotic and clunky, and sometimes you can mash on the Pip-Boy button only for your character to never bring it up, leaving you open to the deadly swipe of a Deathclaw. The menus themselves continue to be a struggle to get through. That standard Bethesda jank will never go away, seeing as I had enemies doing cartwheels through walls during slow-mo V.A.T.S. moments, but I’d like to see less of it on an enhanced engine.

Considering my Xbox One bundle comes with a digital version of a backwards compatible version of Fallout 3, there’s hope down the road of Fallout: New Vegas also getting the same treatment. If so, cool. Perhaps by then I might be in the mood to return to Brown Town and finish up the remaining six Achievements. Until then, I have Fallout 4‘s ruined Boston to explore, which is doubly interesting to me seeing as I visited the real-life city back in August and expect to recognize several locations. Hopefully one of them is the fake Cheers bar. It’s gonna be wicked.